Up the creek without a paddle, and relaxed about it

Officers attending the robbery on Tuesday of an armoured car in Monroe, in Washington state, discovered that the suspect’s description was far from unusual among people outside the Bank of America branch that morning. In all, around a dozen men were wearing long-sleeved blue shirts, surgical masks and blue hats.

They had been lured to the scene by a bogus advert on the Craigslist website that had offered road maintenance jobs. It specified that applicants should wear blue shirts and dust masks.

The robber shot pepper spray into the face of a guard outside the bank before fleeing with a money bag across a nearby creek.

Witnesses said he jumped into the water and floated away on a tire inner tube.